PSYCO333 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Walter Mischel, Hans Eysenck, Trait Theory
Document Summary
Trait approach to personality exemplifies 2 points about the concept of personality: people are consistent in their actions, thoughts, and feelings over time and situations. The composition of the pattern differs from one person to another. The intersection among traits in any given person defines their personality. The(cid:396)e (cid:449)ill (cid:271)e (cid:374)u(cid:373)e(cid:396)ous e(cid:454)(cid:272)eptio(cid:374)s to people"s ge(cid:374)e(cid:396)al o(cid:396) usual (cid:449)a(cid:455) of (cid:271)eha(cid:448)i(cid:374)g. Older people appear to be more consistent in their personalities than younger people (cid:894)as the(cid:455)"(cid:396)e i(cid:374) thei(cid:396) fo(cid:396)(cid:373)ati(cid:448)e (cid:455)ea(cid:396)s still forming their personalities) Triggered by walter mischel: traits are poor predictors of behaviors, personality assessments and everyday intuitions about personality are fundamentally flawed. Situations are better when accounting for differences in behavior. Test of the usefulness of a personality trait is whether you can use it to predict behavior. Situationist argument: predictive capacity of personality is very limited, at best, (cid:272)o(cid:396)(cid:396)elatio(cid:374)s (cid:271)et(cid:449)ee(cid:374) pe(cid:396)so(cid:374)alit(cid:455) t(cid:396)aits a(cid:374)d (cid:271)eha(cid:448)io(cid:396) . (cid:1007)(cid:1004) (cid:894). (cid:1008)(cid:1004), nis(cid:271)ett(cid:895, response #1 unfair literature review.